The Perspectives and Challenges of Primacy and Synodality in the Orthodox Church Today

The Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church in 2016 should be perceived and received as a genuine manifestation of synodality at the beginning of the 21st century. It has reminded us that it is within the exercise of primacy and synodality at the universal level that the unity and the orthodoxy of the church is guaranteed. Its message referred to the proposal for the Holy and Great Council to become a regular institution to be convened every seven or ten years. By saying this, the Holy and Great Council has perhaps inaugurated a new era of synodality in the Orthodox Church on the universal level. This is perhaps the greatest contribution of the Holy and Great Council in an era of globalization, when the pastoral problems encountered by each local autocephalous church, due to a growing secularization of the world, are very similar and need a common synodal response.     

The Documents of the Holy and Great Council on Marriage and Fasting

This article offers a critical response to the documents on marriage and on fasting of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, which took place in Crete in 2016. It suggests greater attention be given to the concept of oikonomia in contemporary Orthodoxy, both in the context of the issues raised in these two documents and with respect to other contentious issues. In contemporary Orthodoxy, the exercise of oikonomia is understood in different ways. One approach is the legalistic understanding of the term that is employed in the council documents; the second and more traditional approach is to understand oikonomia as discernment of what is true and authentic, even outside the canonical limits of Orthodoxy. The article asks whether such a perspective could characterize the church’s approach to other complex pastoral issues, such as those related to marriage and fasting.     

The Preparation and Organization of the Holy and Great Council

This paper, given at the 8th International Conference of Orthodox Theology, held in Thessaloniki, 21–25 May 2018, on the theme “The Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church: Orthodox Theology in the 21st Century,” reviews the preparation, organization, and convocation of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church in 2016 and makes suggestions for the next pan-Orthodox synodal expression of the church.     

The 1920 Encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Proposal for a “League of Churches”

In January 1920, the Ecumenical Patriarchate issued an encyclical – “Unto all the Churches of Christ Wheresoever They Be” – which has played a key role in the history of the ecumenical movement and the engagement of the Orthodox Church in it. The document was prepared by a group of theologians of the Ecumenical Patriarchate headed by Metropolitan Germanos (Strenopoulos). At the time of its publication, it had an official English version; however, it is usually referenced according to its later revised translation, undertaken in 1959 by W. A. Visser ’t Hooft. A significant difference is that the 1920 translation did not include what has come to be seen as the central feature of the 1920 encyclical: that is, the proposal to create a “League of Churches.” The article explores whether the revision is a more accurate translation of the Greek original or rather an interpretation of the encyclical that enshrines in the text its key concept – which was, however, not contained in the original document.     

In the Wake of the Great Recession: Economic Uncertainty,Communication, and Biological Stress Responses in Families

The impact of spouses' communication about economic uncertainty on biological stress responses was examined. The sample included 82 Latino and Caucasian couples and one of their adolescents. Wives with low economic uncertainty experienced the greatest cortisol increase to a stressful discussion with their spouse, while wives with high economic uncertainty experienced a blunted cortisol response. Husbands with high economic uncertainty exhibited a low, unresponsive cortisol pattern. Wives who experienced elevated cortisol used more corumination and had low community support. The amount parents talked about their financial worries to their adolescent was not associated with the adolescent's mental health or biosocial markers, but the parents' economic uncertainty and corumination with each other were negatively associated with their own mental health.     

From Olaf to Omar: Pedagogy of Place at a Lutheran University

This article reflects on the range of environmental and institutional layers that support pedagogical composition and student learning at a Lutheran University affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in the Pacific Northwest. After reflection on layers that include geographic location, institutional affiliation and denominational affiliation, the author traces the way in which she incorporates these elements into the content and methods of assessment in a religion class on Islam.     

Ibn al-Ṭayyib’s Trinitarian Formulation in the Islamic Milieu

This article examines a theological treatise of Abū al-Faraj ?Abd Allāh Ibn al-?ayyib, a savant of the Assyrian Church of the East. The treatise discusses the Attributes of Deity demonstrating a thematic correspondence with the dominant polemical arguments occasioned by the Christian view of the Trinity and Christology. These include the relation of the hypostases to the attributes of essence, specifically the unity of the divine essence in contrast to the plurality of the hypostases. Ibn al-?ayyib also borrows concepts from the Muslim milieu to commend his Christian formulation. Most notable among these is the Ash?arī concept of the divine attributes (?ifāt) and their categorization. The Ash?arīs had limited the attributes of essence to seven. Ibn al-?ayyib limits them to three: paternity, filiation and procession. The article considers Ibn al-?ayyib’s Christian intellectual forebears, demonstrating that he used and amended their formulations. Finally, two Muslim polemicists are considered to establish that Ibn al-?ayyib was engaging with specific objections concerning the Christian Trinity. This thematic correspondence warrants a reconsideration of Ibn al-?ayyib’s contribution to the Muslim–Christian interface. Although never an explicitly polemic theologian, the savant-priest developed an implicit apologetic through his theological treatises that provided intellectual fortification for his Christian community.     

The Roman Catholic Church and Slavery in José Evaristo d'Almeida's O Escravo (The Slave)

This installment of Dialog's Theology in Film and Fiction series introduces the first Cape Verdean novel, The Slave, by José Evaristo d'Almeida (1856). This vivid story depicts a number of social and moral issues tied together within the tragic plot of the novel. The article discusses the historical relationship of the Roman Catholic Church to slavery, the colonial history of Portugal and Cape Verde, and the theological use of the Bible in this history. This discussion is applied to Almeida's novel, revealing the manifold nineteenth‐century varieties of the literary history and theology of colonialism.     

基督教传统对美国政治、社会的认知及影响

基督教传统从北美大陆殖民地时期开始就一直主导着这一地区的政治倾向和社会发展,在确立了政教分离的建国原则后,这一传统在影响美国政治与社会发展的进程中,也在不断适应着变化的时代。本文以美国历史为主线,分析了不同历史时期基督教传统对政治体制、社会变迁等问题作出的认知与判断,并简述其对美国政治领域和社会领域的影响。     

Dyadic Nexus Fighting Two‐Front Battles: A Study of the Microlevel Process of the Official‐Religion‐State Relationship in China

This article provides a microlevel perspective of the interacting dynamics between religion and the Chinese state, demonstrating how religious leaders and local officials negotiate with each other pragmatically, continually withstanding pressure from hardline religious masses and state bureaucracy. This perspective, constructed using qualitative data on the True Jesus Church, also helps to answer a critical empirical question left open in scholarly discussions: When and how does the state regulative power on religion come to the fore in the economic reform emphasizing pragmatic religion‐state cooperation? The findings show how religious leaders and local officials have become pragmatic, cooperating to form a dyadic nexus that tackles regular affairs in a practical way, though it may run the risk of fracture when lay members and bureaucratic superiors pressure leaders and officials, respectively, to take hardline positions. The leaders and officials have continually fought two‐front battles while shuttling between negotiations with their nexus partner and aligning with their hardline sources of pressure. This study may shed light on future research of the Chinese religion‐state relationship in general by illustrating a microlevel, integrative, dynamic approach.